Former teacher named in sex assault suit against church

A former teacher at the Crescent City Seventh Day Adventist Christian School, convicted in 2016 of two counts of raping and molesting two children in Sequim, Washington, has been named in a sexual assault lawsuit against the Western Washington Corporation of Seventh Day Adventists.

The lawsuit, filed in King County, Washington, on behalf of the parents of a student, who was 10 years old when they were assaulted by Douglas J. Allison while he was a principal and teacher at Mountain View Christian School in Sequim, is scheduled to go to trial on Oct. 1, according to Mischelle Davis, director of operations and communications for the Seattle-based Davis Law Group.

The complaint also cites investigations by the Del Norte County Sheriff’s Office into two reports that Allison had put his hands down a student’s pants while he was a teacher in Crescent City.

According to Christopher Davis, founder of the Davis Law Group, the alleged victim had moved from Del Norte County to Renton, Washington and had complained to a teacher at the Seventh Day Adventist School in Washington about Allison’s alleged actions.

According to Davis, the defendant in the lawsuit, Western Washington Corporation of Seventh Day Adventists, which oversees Mountain View Christian School, didn’t investigate Allison’s past in California despite the abuse allegations.

“We know he did (abuse) at least two girls, including my client, up in Sequim,” Davis said. “We know about the student that moved up here from California and went to one of the church schools in Renton. I don’t know if there’s others (victims) down in California. We think there’s probably others in California, but we’re just not aware of them at this point.”

The lawsuit accuses the Western Washington Corporation of Seventh Day Adventists of negligence and failure to prevent the “ongoing and preventable molestations” of the plaintiff’s child.

On Aug. 7, 2016, the Associated Press reported that Allison pleaded guilty to two counts of child molestation and two counts of child rape.

According to the civil complaint, Allison was sentenced to 26.5 years in prison. Allison and his wife were hired to teach at Mountain View Christian School in August 2013, according to the complaint. The plaintiff’s child was Allison’s student during the 2015-16 school year, according to the complaint.

The civil complaint also includes an April 5, 2016 letter regarding Allison from Georgia C. England, a social worker with the Del Norte County Department of Health and Human Services’ Child Welfare Branch, to Amy Bundy, a detective with the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office.

In her letter, England cites two child welfare cases, both sexual abuse evaluations, in Del Norte County that involve Allison.

In one case, reported to the Del Norte County Sheriff’s Office on Dec. 22, 2014, the reporting party alleged that Allison, who was teaching at the Crescent City Seventh Day Adventist Christian School, had put his hands down the front of a student’s pants “on many occasions.” The teacher did this multiple times when the student was in the fourth- through sixth-grades with the most recent incident occurring in 2012, according to the report.

According to the December 2014 report, the student had been in Del Norte County for the holidays and would be returning to school in Washington.

England’s letter cites another report, taken by the Del Norte County Sheriff’s Office on Jan. 25, 2016, in which a student alleged to a third party that Allison had put his hands down her pants. According to England’s letter, the reporting party in the January 2016 case stated that Allison claimed he had put his hands on the student’s back and that his fingertips were below her waistband. The student, however, disclosed to another party that his hands had gone down the front of her pants, according to England’s letter. This alleged incident occurred in 2014, according to England’s letter.

The Del Norte County Sheriff’s Office turned over the results of their investigation into the 2014 and 2016 allegations to the Del Norte County District Attorney’s Office during Dale Trigg’s tenure, said Cmdr. Bill Steven. Steven said the investigation was thorough and had been submitted to the DA’s office for prosecution.

Del Norte County District Attorney Katherine Micks said Trigg’s office received the report from the sheriff’s office at the beginning of 2017. Charges have not been filed, Micks said, but her office hasn’t rejected the investigation either.

“It’s still under review,” she said. “We haven’t made a charging decision yet.”

According to Davis, the lawsuit will be tried in King County Superior Court in Washington. He said while the complaint doesn’t ask for a specific dollar figure, if successful the award could be several million “given how egregious and how outrageous the conduct was and the fact the school knew about it, should have known about it and did nothing about it.”

The pastor at the Crescent City Seventh Day Adventist Church, Mason Philpot, did not respond to several attempts to reach him for comment by telephone.